The Obnoxious Foreign Policy Ideas in Romney’s Convention Speech

Most of Romney’s acceptance speech seemed dull to me, but I am not part of the audience he was trying to reach. He saved all of his standard obnoxious foreign policy remarks for the very end to make sure that anyone still watching him after 11:00 p.m. Eastern would be put off and irritated. Romney launched into his remarks on foreign policy by saying, “I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour.” The apology tour never happened, and Romney’s numerous references to it are all dishonest. I assume that this means that Romney’s promised “jobs tour” will be every bit as real as the “apology tour.” I expect that Romney’s “jobs tour” will produce just as many jobs as there were apologies in the “apology tour.”

The rest of Romney’s claims are just his usual boilerplate. Compared to another inexperienced governor focused on economic issues, Romney spent a bit more time on foreign policy issues, but managed to say even less than Clinton did in 1992. Romney repeats the lie about “abandoning” Poland. There is also the misrepresentation of Obama’s “flexibility” comments, and then there is the absurdity of accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus” by stating longstanding U.S. policy. None of what Romney said was accurate, and even when he was referring to things that did happen he greatly distorted their meaning. Heather Hurlburt had this to say in response to Republican missile defense criticism:

Tonight, we will likely hear again the claim that the Administration “cancelled” a missile defense scheme with Poland and the Czech Republic. This is only true if you define “cancelled” as meaning “substituted a system that might actually work” (Poland) or “agreed not to deploy a system the Czech Parliament had made it clear it was not going to approve.”

One doesn’t need to believe that the new missile defense plan will “work” to recognize that Romney’s charge on Poland in the speech is nonsense. On Russia policy, James Lamond and Bill French add this today:

The party’s standard bearer, Mitt Romney, is creating a relationship with Russia that is adversarial, making it more difficult to work together to address mutual interests – the very point of the “reset.”

The strange thing about the Republican position on Russia is that it doesn’t seem to be aimed at achieving anything in particular. It doesn’t seem to concern Romney and his supporters that working with Russia will become more difficult, because they don’t seem to see anything of value in Russian cooperation. Irking Russia appears to be its own reward. Calling out Putin by name in this speech may get him a few cheers from delegates and some glowing reviews from his stenographers in the media, but it will confirm Putin in his assumption that Americans aren’t to be trusted and should be viewed with suspicion. Romney has gone out of his way to make sure that relations with Russia will sour if he is elected, and I don’t think he or his advisers have thought through what that might mean for the U.S. The same goes for all of the other foreign policy positions the Romney campaign has taken so far.

Romney’s supporters refer to Ahmadinejad as Hitler and Russia as America’s Number One Foe. So Hitler is in second place on the evil chart and Putin is in first? Or is there a different way to understand his supporters’ priorities? Two birds, one stone and a candidate who didn’t play catch as a child.

There’s probably one good thing that can be said about Mittens here, and this is damning with faint praise:

Opposition presidential candidates making undiplomatic statements concerning foreign policy on the stump, in particular accusing the incumbent of taking an insufficiently hard line on some foreign country, is a longstanding feature of US politics. The Romney campaign has doubtless broken a few domestic taboos (not that they care), particularly with respect to politicking abroad, but somewhat-intelligent foreign leaders (and I include Putin in this category, his many faults notwithstanding) are well-advised on the fact that American political candidates say dumb and offensive things for domestic political consumption, and that the hard line that Candidate Romney may take at the convention doesn’t necessarily imply a similar hard line in office.

Were I Putin, I’d be more concerned with what Romney is DOING–which advisers he has surround himself with–rather than what he is saying to US voters.

Sounds like a typical Ed Schultz apology for Obama and his leading-from-behind non-leadership. Count me as one independent who was thinking of subscribing but isn’t so sure that that’s the conservative thing to do.

What is probably of more concern to the Russians is that the Romney campaign is stating openly on its website they are going to do everything they can to undermine Russia when in power. Antagonizing Iran is like picking a fight with a weasel, it might chew you up a little, but you’ll come out alive. Picking a fight with Russia is picking a fight with a bear. I also don’t get how any of this is supposed to benefit the American people. How does it help the United States to have closer ties with a bunch of landlocked Islamic dictatorships? How does it help the American people to support a Syrian uprising that is even as we speak starving Christian communities and working with Al Queda?

Romney is acting like a drunk frat boy about to try and pick a fight with a trucker at the end of the bar.

When you speak loudly and carry no stick, your dangerous ideas should be limited to the others in your asylum. Putin’s foreign policy goals are limited and understandable and most importantly achievable. Russia is popular in the Orthodox areas of Europe and now tends to push most forward in those areas ( follow the bank loans). And the recent successful meeting between the Russian Orthodox and Polish Catholic leaders was maybe a thousand times more important than some westernized would-be porn clowns desecrating an important Russian church. You might have missed it, the American elite did. Romney’s foreign policy “goals” are unlimited, incoherent and not achievable. If he is serious, Mormon foreign missionaries need to start packing their bags.

Answer me this oh great one, what is America’s standing in the world today? According the Germans it isn’t that good: “German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble rebuffed recent criticism of Germany’s handling of the euro crisis from Barack Obama, telling the US president to get his own house in order before giving advice.

“Herr Obama should above all deal with the reduction of the American deficit. That is higher than that in the euro zone,” he told German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday night. It is easy to give advice to others, he added,

Obama, worried about the impact of the debt crisis on the global economy and financial markets — and on his own prospects for re-election –has been urging Europe to step up its efforts to tackle the problem.”

One of the stranger moments( and it may have been Rice) was a complaint that we owed the Chinese a cool trillion. A few minutes later the speaker vowed we wouldn’t be bullied by China . Debtor empires don’t push anyone around.

Are my eyes deceiving me or did the image in this post change from Romney sitting and looking up at McCain to a recreation of Mr. Roark and Tattoo from fantasy island watching an approaching plane of tourists?

Condoleezza Rice has ZERO understanding of the Middle East, when G W Bush so foolishly chose her to serve as National Security Advisor. Would Romney be equally foolish in his choice? Probably. Romney apparently is not even aware Putin sought improved relations with the US.

Could Romney be such a simpleton on foreign policy matters, to be unable to see that scoring points by being hostile toward Russia is contrary to the best interests of the US (and the Middle East)? Answer is affirmative.